Solaria signs Uruguay agreement for up to 500 MW of data centres
Uruguay estimates a US$5.7B project cost, while Solaria's filing leaves its funding share and tenant contracts unspecified.
Julian Okafor
A proposed US$5.7 billion data-centre campus would pair a new free zone with solar generation, without a disclosed financing package. The plan for up to 500 megawatts was disclosed on Thursday by Solaria Energía y Medio Ambiente, S.A. BMESLR, the Spanish solar generator expanding into digital infrastructure.
The Uruguayan government's Wednesday announcement assigns US$5.5 billion to the data centres and US$200 million to solar generation. Solaria's filing describes development and operating responsibilities, but does not specify how those sums would be financed or divided among investors and operators.
Shares traded at €16.00 on BMESLR in Madrid at 12:26 p.m. CEST on Friday. The plan starts with 200 MW of data-centre capacity and 350 MW of solar generation, followed by another 300 MW of data centres.
Solaria has scheduled a November investor day to update its strategy. The event provides an opportunity to explain the financing and commercial terms absent from its Oct. 15 disclosure.
Solaria Will Develop And Operate The Free Zone
The company says its role includes land development, infrastructure and services for data-centre operators, plus a connection to Uruguay's 500-kilovolt transmission grid. Its project release describes the campus as initially focused on cloud services, with closed-loop cooling or equivalent systems intended to limit water consumption.
"Solaria will develop and operate the Free Trade Zone, providing land, infrastructure and services to major data center operators," the company said in the release.
UTE, Uruguay's state-owned electricity utility, would provide land for one or two solar plants. The agreement envisages a power purchase agreement of up to 40 years under which UTE would buy their generation; neither the release nor the filing discloses the electricity price.
That arrangement places the utility between the solar output and the broader electricity system. The announcement describes a grid-connected campus, while the stated 350 MW of solar capacity is a generation rating, without an hourly supply schedule or a disclosed campus electricity tariff.
The government's Oct. 14 account places the facilities across Canelones, San José and Florida. It projects 3,100 construction jobs in the first stage toward 2029 and 1,500 permanent positions once the full project operates, rather than identifying an opening date for the entire campus.
The Filing Does Not Specify A Financing Package
The Oct. 15 filing does not identify lenders, an equity contribution, a funding timetable or a named data-centre tenant. It also gives no construction budget for Solaria's own responsibilities, preventing a calculation of the cash the listed company must supply against the government's US$5.7 billion estimate.
Solaria's Sept. 24 results release reported first-half investment of €275.8 million against net profit of €124.9 million. Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation reached €210.1 million. Net financial debt relative to trailing earnings on that measure stood at 3.9 times, down from 5.4 times at the end of 2025.
The Sept. 24 release reported €99.6 million of first-half data-centre infrastructure sales, mainly from milestones under its model of providing land with grid connections. Solaria said contracted data-centre capacity had reached 438 MW, a separately reported portfolio figure that the Uruguay filing does not identify as including the new campus.
Opposition National Party senator Sebastián Da Silva has challenged the company's financial capacity to undertake the project, MercoPress reported on Friday. His criticism concerns the government's headline investment figure; the filing leaves Solaria's share of that expenditure unspecified.
Energy Companies Are Offering Capacity In Stages
The agreement follows the sector's expansion from power production into sites and services for computing customers. Venture Global, Inc. NYSEVG, a U.S. liquefied natural gas producer and exporter, said on Oct. 15 it could develop up to 10 gigawatts of compute capacity by the end of 2034, subject to customer commitments and commercial considerations.
Mugglehead's earlier coverage of those power frameworks for data centres traced the steps between equipment arrangements and future deployment. Solaria's Oct. 15 disclosure similarly establishes a development plan while leaving customer contracts, financing amounts and commissioning dates undisclosed.
Read more: Venture Global signs power frameworks for 10 GW data centre plan
Solaria's Sept. 24 results release says it will hold an investor day in November 2026 to update its strategic plan and growth targets. That release gives no specific day; the event offers shareholders a forum to test how the Uruguay obligations fit its investment plan.
